Wesley Epplin, the policy director at Chicago AHEC’s host organization, Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, was recently quoted in an article by Block Club Chicago. He spoke about the impact of underfunding health departments on Black and Brown communities.

“A critical pandemic lesson is that underfunding governmental public health is foolish and deadly,” Wesley said in his October 19 testimony to Chicago’s City Council Committee on the Budget and Government Operations. “Public health is not optional. We need sufficient flexible local funding for [the Chicago Department of Public Health] such that it has the staff and capacity to respond to current and emergent public health problems.”

The department gets most of its money from grants, the Block Club article noted, but experts say more tax dollars are needed to support vital community health programs.

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